It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been frequenting these parts for a while that I have no patience for the callous disregard which Apple often exhibits towards developing nations like India. What may come as a surprise to some, however, is that I’m usually far more likely to be speaking in favour of the company than against it; when they replace my two-and-a-half year old MacBook Pro with a brand new unibody model for free, for instance, it is certainly reason enough for me to be effusive about the company.
Let’s start at the beginning: I bought a 17-inch MacBook Pro in August 2006, a little less than three years ago, from RSG Infotech in Kalkaji, New Delhi. It was my first Mac and was one of the most powerful computers on the market at the time, what with its 2.16GHz Core Duo processor, ATI X1600 graphics card with 256MB of onboard memory, 120GB hard disk drive, and 1GB of built-in RAM running at 667MHz. It doesn’t sound like much today but it used to be an absolute beast of a machine back in the day. It was also the first Mac to ship with an Intel processor and the capability to install Windows using Boot Camp (which was still in beta at the time).
Unfortunately, that also made it a first generation product and, like most companies, Apple suffers from the problem of shipping buggy first generation products on occasion. Apart from the SuperDrive giving up on me before my first year of usage was up though, I faced absolutely no problems with this machine. Since I used to live in Siliguri up until a month ago, I had to take my MacBook Pro to an Apple Authorised Reseller and Service Provider in Kolkata to have it fixed.
The dealer in question was Imagine (the retail outlet of Systematix Media) in the City Center shopping mall in Kolkata. Although they did end up replacing my faulty SuperDrive for me, it was a painful and humiliating experience. The store was utterly lacking in all departments—the prices were marked higher than usual, the staff was not knowledgeable, the owner himself was impolite, and the speed of service was terrible. It took them over two weeks to simply replace the SuperDrive, during which time I was neither given my Mac back nor a temporary replacement. If you plan to buy a Mac in Kolkata, I highly recommend that you avoid dealing with Systematix Media.
When the first year of usage, and hence the warranty coverage, was approaching its end, I was faced with a crucial decision that all Mac users must face at some point—should I buy the AppleCare Protection Plan or not. Although it was a difficult decision—Rs. 15,000, after all, is no small sum of money—I eventually ended up shelling out the dough and getting the extended warranty coverage. Even if a single problem cropped up in the next two years, I figured, I would probably recover most, if not all, of the money I was spending then.
As it turns out, and as my father would later admit, that was one of the best decisions I ever made. Within one-and-a-half years of my having purchased AppleCare Protection Plan (henceforth referred to as “APP”) for it, I had to get the battery, keyboard, top casing, and SuperDrive (again!) replaced, which more than made up for the amount I’d initially paid for the extended warranty coverage. I would like to note, however, that none of those issues, besides the battery, ever hampered my usage of the machine significantly.
Glad though I already was at my decision to purchase APP, what really made me jump with joy was when the graphics card on my notebook started acting up and the sleep mode started performing unreliably (among other things) and Apple decided to replace it for free. That’s right—they just took it in, had the issues diagnosed, and then sent me a free replacement. What follows is the story of how that came about.
A couple of months ago, the screen of my notebook started having some issues. Every time I watched a movie on it or played a game, the colours would get all messed up and green lines would appear all over the display. Since it also wasn’t staying in sleep mode, the spacebar key was stuck on one end, and the SuperDrive had gone bust once again (I swear, I was running out of them like biscuits!), I decided that I’d had enough.
I made a wise move at this point: Before going to an Apple Authorised Service Center, I decided to give a direct call to AppleCare and read out all my issues out of a canned speech (fortunately for me, I can write decently enough when I want to). In a call that lasted over thirty minutes, I was handled by an Apple customer care representative, who handed me over to a woman called Hana from the customer relations department. Both of them were exceedingly polite and profusely apologised for all the problems I’d been facing with my Mac.
Ms. Hana then told me to take my notebook to whichever Apple Authorised Service Center was nearest to me (it was RSG Infotech again) and that she would e-mail them herself. She said that these people would be tasked with diagnosing my machine and that if they found any hardware defects, Apple would issue me a replacement. I did just that and, three days later, I had the MacBook Pro back in my hand and the folks at RSG had sent the diagnosis back to Ms. Hana—my notebook required a logic board, SuperDrive, and keyboard replacement in order to be fixed.
As promised, Hana called me the next day—or maybe it was I who called her, I don’t remember—and told me that she would be transferring my case to some other department which handled all product replacements. My Mac was being replaced! I thanked her and we went our separate ways.
That very day, I received an e-mail from Archimedes Balance from AppleCare who told me that he would be handling my case from then on and that the machine I would get as a replacement had a 2.66GHz processor, 4GB of built-in RAM, and a 320GB hard disk drive. Clearly, it was the 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro that I’d just witnessed the introduction of in the Moscone hall in San Francisco a few months ago. It was all turning out to be an unbelievably awesome experience for me.
Over the course of the next few days, someone from Blue Dart courier services came to my doorstep and collected my old MacBook Pro (which was paid for by Apple) and Mr. Archie said that he would keep me in the loop as the case progressed. And although it did take a little more time than I’d expected (I’d been told it would take ten days but it took a little more than a fortnight), I did get a brand new 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro at the end of the day!
And the good tidings didn’t end there either. I later received another e-mail from Archie which had a Proof of Warranty certificate attached that said that the warranty of this machine extended from May 2009 to May 2010 and that I could further extend it up to 2012 by purchasing APP separately for it. At this point, I was honestly beginning to get the impression that I’d left Earth and entered a parallel Utopian universe.
As thankful as I am to Apple as a whole and to both Ms. Hana and Mr. Archie though, I have to give due credit to RSG Infotech as well. They’re just one among many Apple Authorised Resellers in India and can choose to be just as ordinary as any of them, but they aren’t. I’ve had similarly amazing customer service experiences with them in the past (even when it didn’t involve Apple products) and have already seen them at their best twice in the recent past—this is one company that knows how to care for its customers. They are situated in Santnagar, New Delhi, can be reached at +91 9310196622, and I highly recommend that you give them a shot if you want to buy an Apple product or two.
I thanked Mr. Archie for all that he’d done for me and congratulated both him and Apple for exceeding their own high standards of customer service and going above and beyond what almost any other company would do for its customers. Being a writer for Macworld means that I get to hear a lot of amazing stories from customers who’ve had fantastic run-ins with AppleCare, but, being in India, I’d never expected to one day have a similar story of my own to narrate. It is a gratifying feeling to know that AppleCare actually means what it’s literally supposed to mean—Apple truly does care.
[Aayush Arya is a regular contributor for Macworld and spends much of his time staring at the shiny box of his newly arrived MacBook Pro—which, by the way, is up for sale at a discounted price if anyone wants to lay their hands on it.]
(I know I should be happy but with these kinds of stories about the place…)
